


2 Corinthians 5:10

by Dogtreat



Category: Far Cry 5, Far Cry: New Dawn
Genre: Angst, But it's important to my deputy to like......have that written in rships tag lmao, Canon-Typical Violence, Faith and Deputy relationship only alluded to, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Mental Disintegration, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scarification, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 22:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17837300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogtreat/pseuds/Dogtreat
Summary: "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad."The story of how Deputy Addison Gully loses herself in the madness of it all.





	2 Corinthians 5:10

* * *

_"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad."_

**_2 Corinthians 5:10_ **

* * *

_Gods._

She’d tried so hard she—

If she takes just too deep of a breath she can still smell them; gutted and burning alive out there. Whitehorse, Pratt, Hudson. Gods even _Dutch_ ; this was _his_ bunker.

She’d let them die. She’d killed them all. She did this. She did—

“Do not cry,” the singsong voice comes nearer and nearer, “You truly did the very best you could. If you had but only listened.”

“Stay away from me,” she manages to get out around the tightness in her throat, “You think you’re absolved of tragedy? You let your Brothers die for this. You let Rachel—”

“You forget who it was that pulled those triggers, snake. Rest now. Rest. Awake when you are feeling anew.”

She doesn’t miss the prick of pain in her arm or the buzz in her head.

“Fuck you,” she slurs before succumbing to sleep.

* * *

When he does finally release her from the chains on the bed she draws a line down the center of every hall and every room and throws the chalk down beside his scribbling hand.

“Stay on your fucking side and we won’t have any issues.”

“And if I do not?” he asks with vague amusement; like a parent to a child.

She hates him. She _hates_ him. But they already have one dead body and she shudders about the possibilities for getting rid of _that._

She won’t kill him. Not yet. She can’t—

“Just. Stay away from me,” she grinds out, stalking away from the communications room to one of the furthest in the bunker, pinning the door closed.

Her hands curled around her head do little to stop the ever-present hum of a hymn she can’t quite remember the words of.

* * *

Rachel— Faith— Whoever she was in the end of things; still shows up.

In dreams. In flashes of light. In the mist of tear burdened eyes.

The now ghost sits curled up beside Addison and touches gently at their hand and at their face and begs in fragmented words for forgiveness.

“I could have saved you,” she says, turning to look and soak the image of her former— _something_ in, “I would have torn down the entire valley to save you, you know.”

“I chose my path, Adi,” the image says in soothing tones, “ _I_ chose my path.”

She huffs a laugh and slams, perhaps a little too hard, her head back against the wall, “You had your path chosen _for_ you. You weren’t free from the moment he had his psychopathic fingers wrapped around your throat.”

“Do you wish they had been yours instead?”

Addison startles. This ghost. This figure. It’s her own imagination after all. A figment to deal with loss not yet recovered from.

“No,” she says eventually, “Not around your throat.”

* * *

“Do you see angels, Deputy?” her bunker mate asks, “Is that who you talk to late in the night? Ghosts and angels and images of the past?”

They don’t talk often. She makes _very sure_ of that. If he enters a room she occupies she moves. And she’s far more in shape than him and can keep the game up for longer.

She’s sure it comes as a surprise when she willingly enters a room with him, clutching two barely heated meals in her hands.

It’s their first real meal together since they entered the damned prison a month before.

“I see— I don’t know what I see,” she all but whispers, scooping up the beans and shoveling them in her mouth. They’re bitter and bland and have awful texture and here she was— stuck with them forever.

He waits in silence. He waits and lets her stew and think and watches her like a hawk. He’s the predator still, even now. Or perhaps. Better put. She is more prey than ever.

“It’s all blurring together,” she admits long after their food is finished and their plates cold.

He’s gone back to reading but looks up with such languid calm movements that it would unnerving if she weren’t so— _used_ to it.

“I see Rachel— Faith. I see Hudson and Whitehorse and Pratt. I see your Brothers. I see me. I see you.”

“It is the burden of Death to see all that she touches.”

“Do you expect me to kill you, Joseph?”

“I expect you to want to try.”

It’s not a real answer. Not really.

It still leaves a sour taste in her mouth as she throws her stained plate in his direction, “Do the washing,” she barks, leaving in a hurry with her proverbial tail tucked between her legs.

* * *

A month bleeds into two then three then four.

Faith appears more often than not. Faith now; not Rachel. Not like before, when she could pretend it was still her friend haunting her.

The others she loses in the mess of it all; first their voices go and then their eyes and then their faces. And soon all she sees is specters and horrors that keep her up at night with barely a name left on her lips.

“I don’t remember what they look like anymore,” she quietly admits, curled into the furthest corner of their shared room; lines drawn long forgotten, “I can’t— It’s like they don’t want me to see them anymore. Why would they do that?”

He doesn’t look at her with concern or empathy. He looks instead with the same curious eyes that he always had done; as if she were nothing more than an interesting play thing to him. A toy.

“It’s this place,” she continues, rocking just slightly, “It’s this  _fucking_ place. It’s the smell and the taste and the texture of the air. It’s the shadows that move. I hate this place. I hate it.”

“We will leave soon, child,” the calming voice comes, suddenly in front of her.

She doesn't know when he moved. Did he move? Did she? She rocks again. Back and forth. Eyes fluttering shut.

“Soon, child. Soon.”

* * *

There were three mirrors in the bunker when they entered.

There are none now. Just shards. Bloodied and broken. Smashed and stepped on and cut into the soles of hands and feet and chest and stomach.

_Wrath. Pride. Wrath. Pride._

Carved and crossed out over and over again.

“You carve such ugly sins into yourself,” Not-Rachel speaks from her side, steadying her hand, stopping the sixth or seventh or eighth carving she’s not sure, “Such ugly sins.”

“He was right, you know?” she replies, letting the shard of glass tumble to the floor, shattering on impact, “He was right.”

“Now you see. Now you see what I saw. Go to him. Go to him and he will show you the world you denied yourself for so very long. He will show you a world you never dreamt possible.”

She hums and nods and steps in the broken shards of glass, feeling each pierce through the soles of her worn shoes and into her skin.

Faith, at least, stays and holds her bloodied hand.

* * *

_God tells you, if I listen to you, it’s good and right, and I can help, and I can save people, and make it right, and everything will be okay._

_If I judge as your judge, the judgement is right and just, the judgement is God’s Word._

_I see now._

_I am so sorry._

_If only I had Faith._

* * *

_Give me a mask, I am afraid,_ she scribbles, passing off the note to the man beside her.

He reads it once before putting it aside and reaching out, holding her face in his hands and twisting it this way and that.

“Do you believe if they cannot see you, that they will stop their haunting?” he asks, keeping her face held, “You removed your tongue to stop the talking and yet they still come; now you will remove your face?”

She taps the paper again. Insistent. A begging plea.

“Bring me wood and I will fashion you a mask and when it is done, we will emerge as Father and Judge and you will serve under God as I have and through me you will do his bidding.”

She reaches and scribbles out another note.

~~_Thank you, Joseph._ ~~

_Thank you, Father._

* * *

The mask is somehow between heavy and light; weighing like stone in her hands but a feather against her face.

It’s exterior is rough and pitted and if she runs her fingers too fast along the surface her skin catches on barbs and splinters and is left bleeding and raw.

He helps her put it on for the first time; knelt in front of him with her hands pressed up against his hips, eyes begging.

He anoints it too, dipping his own fingers in water and pressing them against the forehead.

She cries. Muted and ugly for her lack of tongue.

She cries and cries and cries; even after he has said his words and disappeared some rooms away.

Faith curling around her does little to quell the ache in her chest.

* * *

At first the sun is almost blinding; painful and all encompassing and _far_ too hot.

She is grateful at least, that her mask blocks most of it out.

The Father takes it in stride; chest bare and shoulders flexing.

His people; _her_ people; have awaited their return like the disciples of God and Jesus knelt around the Tomb of Jerusalem.

It’s been two years they say in wondrous adoration, falling to their knees in front of him; in front of her.

“The Prophet has risen,” they sing out in chorus, “The Father has returned to us.”

She turns and watches the image of Faith skip about at her side; white sundress fluttering about in the wind and innocent smile playing about her features.

 _‘Come on!’_ the playful voice cries out, a hand reaching out towards her, ‘ _Come play.’_

She doesn’t miss the Father watching her watching the ghost. And when she turns to look at him, sees the _almost_ imperceptible nod he gives for her to leave and return as she wishes.

After all, they’re Family now.

As much as he and Faith were. As much as  _she_ and Faith are.

So she follows, she reaches out and takes the hand of her former friend and lover; the one she had killed herself and let drown in the mighty river. She reaches out and takes the hand and allows herself the quaint feeling of peace in the wide open fields.

_Thank you, Father._


End file.
